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How to Run a Giveaway on Facebook: A Step-By-Step Guide

Looking to run a giveaway on Facebook?

A Facebook giveaway is the easiest way to generate leads and grow your following on social media. In fact, a Facebook giveaway is one of the only remaining ways to generate leads on social media — the other being paid advertising.

Sure you could pay to send traffic to your website but there's no guarantee it will result in sales.

You might say consistent audience engagement and posting high value content is important on social media.

I wholeheartedly agree but even so, is doing that getting you valuable leads to turn into sales? Probably not.

In this article I'll show you step-by-step how to run a giveaway on Facebook for your business. Start using social media to grow your following and generate leads.

Step 1: Choose a prize

We'll start with the most important piece of the Facebook giveaway puzzle — the prize. The prize is what tempts your audience to enter your giveaway. It must be worth the cost of entry, that is, their personal information.

Pick something that is tied to the business you run. Give away something like an iPad, for example, and you would only get entries interested in the iPad. Instead, giveaway a gift card, store credit, your product itself, or a mix of related items. This way it guarantees all entries will be at least somewhat interested in your product/service.

Make it a prize package. Speaking from experience, we find that prize packages get better results than a single prize. Simply because a prize package made up of smaller items appeals to more people. Offering one prize someone already has is a missed opportunity.

Step 2: Decide on a giveaway theme

Like all school dances, your giveaway needs a theme (under the sea anyone?).

Is there a national holiday to celebrate?

A business anniversary?

A major sporting event? The Superbowl?

Are the seasons changing? Is summer approaching?

Are you launching a new line of products?

Whatever theme you choose it should be unique to your business. It will dictate the design, communication, and entry rules for your giveaway. More than anything, it tells your fans why you're putting on a giveaway. Because the last thing you want is your fans to think your giveaway is an underhanded marketing ploy.

To celebrate Halloween, UrDogs put on a giveaway to find the cutest dog costume. Also known as a photo contest. According to the theme fans submitted photos of their dogs in cute Halloween costumes. The one with the best outfit took home the grand prize.

Step 3: Build and publish your Facebook giveaway page

Now it's time to bring your giveaway to life. It's important to note that building and publishing a Facebook giveaway is exponentially easier with a giveaway building tool (like Wishpond). Plus you won't need to start from zero. There are hundreds of beautiful templates to start from. No need for a designer.

All the creative work is done right inside the app. Once you're done building you have the option to publish your giveaway landing page on your website or directly on your Facebook business page. Either way it'll save you hours of work.

Next we can talk about the design. If your giveaway is going to be a massive success it needs to be exciting and simple. It needs to get people pumped on the prize and be easy to enter into.

To make sure your giveaway goes off without a hitch it needs:

An attention grabbing, benefit oriented headline. Something like "Enter to win a Vitamix blender" grabs attention and tells readers what you want them to do.

Visuals like photos and videos. The higher the quality, the better. An exact photo of the prize builds excitement. Detailed photos allow fans to imagine themselves winning and all the glory that follows.

Entry and prize information. Include information on what qualifies as an entry and what does not. Include details on the prize. Descriptive things like colour, model, dollar value all help build appeal.

Social share buttons. Share buttons on the page make it easier for participants to share your giveaway with friends. Again, if you're using a giveaway tool you can reward those who share your giveaway with bonus entries and a better chance at winning.

Step 4: Promote and share your giveaway

Once you have your Facebook giveaway looking pixel perfect, it's time to market and promote. Just because you've built it doesn't mean your audience will find it. We need to send it traffic.

You have two option to promote your Facebook giveaway: paid or organic.

For those who are just getting started with Facebook, paid promotion can deliver immediate traffic to your giveaway page. It's a viable option if you have a budget to spend. Facebook ads provide vast amount of targeting options to find your demographic quickly and at a marginal cost.

If paid promotion isn't in your budget there are ways to promote your giveaway organically.

This includes:

Changing the banner images on all your social media channels. Updating your profile and including a link to your giveaway.

Send periodic emails to your email lists reminding them about the giveaway and prompting them to share it with friends.

Add a banner or popup to your website to alert all visitors about your giveaway.

Cross promote your giveaway on all your social media channels, not only Facebook.

Add inline calls-to-action to blog posts that you share on social media.

Step 5: Follow up

At the end of your Facebook giveaway the last thing you'll do is follow up.

Again, if you're using a giveaway app it should pick a winner at random for you. It should also automatically email an alert to everyone telling them the giveaway has ended.

Announce the winner on all of your communication channels. Share the winning entry or a photo of the winner on social media if appropriate. Everyone who has entered your giveaway will want to know a winner was chosen and a prize was given away. Not doing so might deter people from entering your next giveaway.

In addition to sharing it on social media send a follow up email to everyone who entered. This is your chance to include information on the winner, the prize, information about your business, a prompt to lookout for your next giveaway, and maybe even a discount code/coupon.

Do your best to continue to engage with the folks who entered your giveaway. This could mean reaching out with a few personalized emails, sending a special offer, or just adding them to your regular newsletter list.

Following up is the first step in the process of turning those leads into paying customers.